Professional Documents
Culture Documents
1
In this issue
Chairs welcome
Jian-Xing Ma, M.D., Ph.D.
Research highlights
A new cause of chronic pain and
anxiety at molecular level
Guidelines for neuromodulation
Safe and efficient vector for gene
therapy
Novel mechanism to intervene
angiogenesis under pathological
conditions
Research funding
New drugs for body weight
control
Biomarkers for relapsed
alcoholism
Epigenetic studies in endocrine
disruption and oral cancers
Insulin signaling in the eye
Caner stem cell research
Awards to faculty
Siribhinya Benyajati, Ph.D.
Kennon Garrett, Ph.D.
Beverley Greenwood-Van
Meerveld, Ph.D.
Graduate students awards
Anja Bastian
Qian Chen
Mei Du
Xuemin He
Dustin Masser
Stefano Tarantini
Milestones
Beverley Greenwood-Van
Meerveld, Ph.D.
Raju Rajala, Ph.D.
Spring 2015
New faces
Becky J. Mosley
Research highlights
A new cause of chronic pain and anxiety at molecular level
In a recent paper published in Molecular Psychiatry, which has an Impact
Factor 15.147, Dr. Beverley Greenwood-Van Meerveld, Professor of
Physiology, tested the hypothesis that histone deacetylation contributes to the
maintenance of chronic anxiety and visceral pain following prolonged exposure
of the central amygdala (CeA) to cortisol or corticosterone (CORT) in rats. Her
research team found that bilateral infusions of a histone deacetylase inhibitor
into the CeA attenuated anxiety-like behavior as well as somatic and visceral
hypersensitivity resulting from elevated CORT exposure. Moreover, they
delineated a novel pathway through which histone deacetylation could
contribute to CORT regulation of GR and subsequent CRF expression in the CeA.
Specifically, deacetylation of histone 3 at lysine 9 (H3K9), through the
coordinated action of the NAD+-dependent protein deacetylase sirtuin-6 (SIRT6)
and nuclear factor kappa B (NFB), sequesters GR expression leading to
disinhibition of CRF. These results indicate that epigenetic programming in the
amygdala, specifically histone modifications, is important in the maintenance of
chronic anxiety and pain (Tran L., Schulkin J., Ligon C.O. & Greenwood-Van
Meerveld B. Epigenetic Modulation of Chronic Anxiety and Pain by Histone
Deacetylation Mol Psychiatry 2014 doi: 10.1038/mp.2014.122).
Robert D. Foreman,
Gene
therapy is
a
technique
that
introduces exogenous genes to treat or prevent
disease. This therapeutic method, however, is
obstructed by undesirable immune responses
towards the exogenous genes, toxicity of vectors
that carry the gene and lack of sustained gene
expression. Dr. Raju V. S. Rajala, Professor of
Physiology, developed a new nanoparticle
[liposome-protamine-DNA complex (LPD)] that
process promising gene delivery capacity (Rajala et
al., Nanoparticle-assisted targeted delivery of eyespecific genes to eyes significantly improves the
Research funding
New drugs for body weight control
About 35% adults in US were defined as obese
in 2012, a number which has been trebled since
1960. This increasing prevalence of obesity puts a
great pressure to our healthcare and economic
systems. Therefore, developing new and effective
methods to control body weight gain is highly
warranted. To address this issue, Dr.
Chi Bun
Awards to faculty
Dr. Siribhinya Benyajati, Associate
Professor of Physiology, has received the 2014
Regents Award for Superior Teaching. This
award was established on June 6, 1963.
Originally, the award was given to three
individuals each year. In 1965, the policy was
amended to provide a maximum of five and a
minimum of three awards each year. In 1978,
the awards were expanded to include superior
accomplishment in any of the following:
Teaching, Research and Creative Activity,
Professional and University Service, with a
maximum of nine awards in one year with the
understanding the majority of the awards will be
given for superior teaching. This honor has also
been awarded to Dr. Kennon Garrett in 2012.
Beverley
Greenwood-Van
Meerveld was elected as a Member of the
Dr.
Anja Bastian
(Mentor: Dr.
Michael
Ihnat,
Associate
Professor of Pharmaceutical
Sciences and Adjunct faculty of
Physiology) was awarded a
Grant-in-Aid of Research from
Sigma Xi, the Scientific Research
Society.
Xuemin He
(Mentor: Dr.
Jian-Xing Ma) received the
Travel
Award
from
the
American Society of Nephrology
(ASN) Kidneys STARS Program
at ASN Kidney Week.
Mei Du
Stefano Tarantini
(Mentor: Dr. Zoltan Ungvari,
Associate Professor of Geriatric
Medicine and Adjunct faculty of
Physiology) won the 1st prize at
the 2014 OUHSC GREAT
symposium. He also received
several awards from the
American Aging Association
(Travel award), the Reynolds
Oklahoma Center on Aging
(Travel awards and Predoctoral
Fellowship), and the American
Heart
Association-Southwest
Affiliate
(Pre-Doctoral
Fellowship).
Milestones
We are proud to announce that Dr. Beverley
Greenwood-Van Meerveld
has been
appointed as the President Elect of the
Neuropharmacology Division of the American
Society for Pharmacology and Experimental
Therapeutics (ASPET) in 2014. ASPET is a scientific
society with more than 4,000 members in basic and
clinical pharmacological research. ASPET supports
nine divisions, each of which is governed by
independent executive committee.
New faces
Our new Business Manager, Becky J. Mosley, started her new job in Nov
2014. Before she joined our department, Becky was the Senior Administrative
Manager and Business Manager of the Graduate College and Endocrinology
Department respectively. Working at OUHSC for more than 22 years in different
departments and offices, from clinical to contract works, Becky has extensive
experiences in administration and is familiar with the general settings of the
university, which is definitely a beneficial asset to her current job duties. Because of
the excellent performance in her job, Becky was recognized as the Employee of the
Month by the Staff Senate in Jan 2014. In our department, Becky is in charge of
payroll services, accounting, budget, grant accounting administration, and supervising
the clerical staff personnel.